


Indigo

by autumnstwilight (sewohayami)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Accidental Confession, Blood Magic, Body Calligraphy, Getting Together, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, One Shot, Pining, Short, moderately fluffy, roadtrip era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23107144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sewohayami/pseuds/autumnstwilight
Summary: An experimental protective charm in the form of body art and some amateur linguistic sleuthing lead to a shift in Ignis and Noctis's relationship.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 10
Kudos: 76





	Indigo

He awoke to a tickling sensation that caused him to furrow his brows. Forcing his eyes open against the bright light of day, he turned his head to see Noctis tracing a thin paintbrush down his upper arm. His expression was one of concentration, teeth digging into his lip, paintbrush tracing deep blue loops and swirls down over the crook of Ignis’s elbow. He turned, dipping the brush back into a chipped dish of freshly mixed indigo paste, hair falling in his face to cover his eyes. The line of his wrist was covered with a hastily tied bandage, smudged red where he had bled himself for the mixture. Blood magic.

Straining his neck, Ignis tried to see the design on his arm. The sigil of the Just, simplified down to the mere outline of a shield and a cross within. Underneath trailed a message in Noct’s elegant Old Lucian calligraphy, energetic and flowing strokes, but confident, balanced. The writing was loose and stylized, intended to be aesthetically pleasing rather than be read, and Ignis was looking at it from the wrong angle anyway. He lay back, not wanting to shift and disturb the process. When Noct raised the brush from his arm, he tried to sit up.

“Ouch.” The pain lanced across him from his abdomen to his collarbone. He looked down to see his unbuttoned shirt framing a partially healed burn, a jagged whip-crack that frayed at the edges like lightning. It came back to him then— Thommel’s Glade, the Tomb of the Just, the shield, and the pack of coeurls that had stalked them from within the trees.

“Sit.” Noct gave the order as if to a misbehaving pet, a spark of intensity in his gaze, and Ignis leaned back against the wall. Noct leaned in, brushing fingertips over the calligraphy and muttering words that bubbled over from the back of his throat in a spill of breathy consonants. Nothing that Ignis could catch the meaning of. The marks glowed blue for a moment, mirroring the magic in Noct’s eyes, then dulled to the shade of a two day old bruise.

“What is this?” Ignis asked.

“Trying something. Dunno if it will work,” Noct responded, as if that was an answer at all. He offered a potion that was sitting on the bedside table. “Drink up. Gladio’s at Kenny’s getting fries for breakfast.”

Ignis was not particularly enthused by the idea of starting the day with an energy drink and greasy diner fries, but he supposed that was what he got for being out of commission until— gods, was it ten already? The alarm clock on the dresser blinked back at him. He managed to pour the potion down his throat, and after that, the pain in his body lessened enough for him to rise and join the others. The wound had faded to the pink of a sunburn, itching as he buttoned his shirt over it. His stomach felt somewhat unsettled, and he raised the first fry to his lips with caution, but soon found himself bolting his portion down, the taste of salt sparking on his tongue and clinging to his lips. It must have been the injury and healing that made him crave it. Either that or missing dinner the previous night.

Afterward, he stood in the motel room with one sleeve rolled up, examining his new body art in the mirror as the others gathered their things. He’d seen the first part engraved on an old suit of armor that had sat in a display at the Citadel, the sigil of the Just followed by, “Protect this warrior.” He frowned. “Protect” seemed to match, but the remainder wasn’t quite right. He snapped a photo of the mirror with his cellphone and flipped it so he could view the text the right way around. He tried to remember what the word for “warrior” should look like in Old Lucian, then “advisor”, then “brother”, then “friend”, but the swirls and loops on his arm remained stubbornly indecipherable. Noct called to him, and he hurried out to the car.

Whatever the spell was, it seemed to work. They encountered a cactuar, which showered them in needles, a pack of voretooth that came at them with snapping jaws, and naturally, yet another troop of MTs that had rained down from a passing airship. It was during that battle that Ignis realized he didn’t have a scratch on him. He dodged and evaded and parried, and perhaps it was merely luck, but the longer the battle dragged on, the more suspicious he became.

He doubted that this little charm would stop a blade through the heart, and so he kept his guard up, blocking strikes when they came. But when the last soldier fell, and he withdrew his lance from the crumpled metal, there was an eerie feeling. He had none of the nicks and bruises that the others had accumulated. His hair wasn’t even out of place.

“What exactly did you write?” Ignis asked, pulling Noct aside as they got back to the Regalia.

“Uh, I’m not sure, actually. I asked  _ her.” _

The tone of his voice made it clear, his ancestor had told him how to perform the spell. Noct had merely imitated what she had shown him. And so he found himself in their caravan that night gazing into the dim illumination of his cellphone screen, trying to puzzle it out.

It was after he had rolled over and tried to sleep that it hit him, sending him scrambling through his jacket pockets for his phone. He  _ did _ know the word, he’d just rarely seen it in that form. The inflection was that of a masculine noun.

For kings, marriage was frequently another duty and expectation imposed by the outside world. It meant a political maneuver, a business transaction more often than it meant romance. And alongside it had grown the tradition of open secrets, of loves spoken in coded language. The kings of old had their favored companions among the court, a history passed down in lockets and letters and diaries that found their way into the archives only after the pages had yellowed and curled.

He made his way into the tiny bathroom, flipped on the light. “Protect my favorite,” spoke the blue lines on his arm, it was the only thing that fit. He pondered for a moment if the wording had come from the Just herself, a memory of a spell she’d used in life. But no, the sentence was correctly structured for a male speaker, and a male object of his affection.

_ The spell wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t precise, if it wasn’t true. Whatever Noct told her about me made her choose this word for us. _ His fingertips rose to touch the mark on his arm, the confession etched onto his skin, awed that it could be real, terrified that it might somehow brush away under his touch. His heart was beating against his ribs, a quiet laugh escaped him, tears burned at the corners of his eyes. How many years had he spent not daring to hope? That Noct could feel this way about any man, let alone that it would be him. It had seemed an altogether unrealistic wish, one that he’d resolved to waste no more time on than the quiet moments when the sunlight caught Noct’s features in a way that made him ache.

When he had pulled his emotions firmly under control, he splashed water on his face and left the washroom. As he took his place on one of the caravan’s tiny bunks, he looked across at Noct, who was sleeping peacefully. Unaware of what he had written, or that Ignis had understood it. Ignis watched the dim outline of his face in the dark, the rise and fall of his breathing, wondering over the softness of his cheeks and the delicate smudge of his eyelashes, until he too fell into the void of sleep.

He managed, though not without effort, to remain silent on the matter throughout the following day. Noct glanced at him quizzically when he asked the motel clerk for two rooms for the four of them, a departure from his usual frugality. He shrugged and rolled his shoulders, then yawned and let Ignis lead him to one of the rooms.

Ignis waited for him to emerge from the shower, clad in a white bath towel, droplets of water still clinging to his exposed shoulders and collarbones. His hair lay flat, still damp, and his eyes looked even wider than usual when Ignis traced a finger down the side of his face, under his chin, and tilted his jaw up. The first kiss was hesitant, the second deeper and more considered, the third clinging and desperate. He crowded Noct onto the bed, regretting for a moment that the sheets were rough and the room dingy, that he deserved much more than this. Everything they’d lost and more. They would take it back, someday.

But on this night, it was those sheets that Noct’s hands twisted in, those small walls from which their ragged breaths resounded. The creak of the mattress springs worked its way into his memory, a first time among first times. They lay against each other in the aftermath, and Noct’s still-damp hair tickled against his cheek, exhalations warm on his collarbones.

He caught the hand that trailed a finger down his chest and entwined it with his own. Sleep took Noct quickly, but Ignis remained awake for a moment to consider. Ever since they met, his role had continued to spread beyond the boundaries meant to confine it and into new definitions. He decided that he rather liked this one.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never felt inclined to use the phrase "writers block" before, since I generally... just don't write if I'm not feeling it, but for the last couple of months my creative brain has been rather dead despite attempts to jumpstart it. Words. Not happening. Ksdjghdkfgjfhk.
> 
> Anyway, I'm hoping it's at least partly a winter depression thing, and the words will return soonish. I wrote a big chunk of this a while back on a good day and tried to pull it together and get the idea out there in some form. I may revisit this concept when I am feeling more... wordsy.


End file.
